Facebook shields Instagram and WhatsApp from linking to other apps
Have you noticed that you always end up looking at the same social networks? Have you noticed that those social networks belong to Facebook? It is not accidental, it is a severe strategy of this company. And it is that, despite its dominant position in the market, in addition to having the social networks and most used messaging applications around the world, still performs some practices that try to prevent the escape of users to other social tools.Something that now also directly affects Instagram, and that many of its users will not like.
Thus, Facebook is blocking the links that some Instagram users post on their profile to bring their followers to other social networks. A widely used resource to promote profiles in other applications and services for the most curious followers. And it is that Instagram only allows you to show links that you can click on in this part of the profile, but without them being able to be used to carry accounts of Snapchat or Telegram Two social networks that compete with some of the applications of Facebook, and that this company wants to veto their domains
The clue, curiously, was given by the creator of Telegram, Pavel Durov , who has published the discovery through Twitter.In his tweet he shows the message that Instagram has sent him when trying to keep the link to your Telegram account Said message reads something like: links for others to follow you on different services are not allowed on Instagram Which has forced him to delete his old link to Telegram, which he kept in hisprofile Instagram
Of course, the most surprising thing is that Instagram continues to respect other links that lead to promotional pages, specific content such as blog pages or toYouTube videos, among other content. It also continues to allow linking to social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter or Periscope Something that suggests that this blocking is selective, targeting Telegram and Snapchat as main enemies of FacebookThus, it is impossible to post a link to another profile of these social networks in Instagram
Another @Facebook tentacle closes on users' ability to share a link to their Telegram profile. hypocrisy pic.twitter.com/xC6ydp3M0p
- Telegram Messenger (@telegram) March 2, 2016
This persecution and shielding of Telegram is not new. And it is that Durov has reason to be angry with Facebook and its policies after, Last December, WhatsApp stopped showing links to Telegram With the same scheme as seen now on Instagram , users trying to send a message with a link to a Telegram group or profile can check that the text is not underlined in blue or allowed to be clicked That is, does not act as a link, remaining as a plain text in a message.
With this, Facebook would prevent users who are on Instagramor WhatsApp abandon these services to access those of the competition A measure that some they will see it with bad eyes, but where the greater evil is suffered by the users themselves, who cannot promote their profiles or content in one or the other services. Of course, in the terms of use of Instagram (that text that is usually accepted without reading when creating a user account), it is stated that the company “can” allow these interactions
